Someone at the Vatican is taking the Blues Brothers line “we’re on a mission from God” a little too seriously. Over the years, Catholic authorities at the Vatican have endorsed a number of films as being recommended viewing for good Catholics. It’s mostly the expected stuff: The Passion of the Christ, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Ten Commandments.

Now The Blues Brothers has been added to the list. Must’ve been Aretha Franklin’s line about two guys looking like ‘Hasidic diamond merchants’ that put the film over the top.

THR says that this week, the 30th anniversary of the film’s first release, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, said the film is a “Catholic classic” and called it recommended viewing for Catholics everywhere.

Now, OK, sure Dan Aykroyd does say that the Blues Brothers are on a mission from God as they attempt to reform their old blues band to raise money to keep their childhood orphanage open. And they have a certain amount of grudging respect for the nun that raised them. (Not enough respect to stop calling her ‘the penguin,’ but we’ll take what we can get.)

Jake does have a religious epiphany of sorts, and I applaud the Vatican for endorsing a film where a character sees the light not at a Catholic Mass, but during an electric gospel performance at an evangelical church. Pretty forward thinking, when it comes to the Vatican, especially since Jake yells “Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ!” as he sees the light.

But that’s par for the course with The Blues Brothers, which is now the second most profane movie endorsed by the Vatican, after The Passion of the Christ. What do you think is a less likely follow-up endorsement: Blues Brothers 2000, or the movie John Landis made as his follow-up to The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London?